John of Scythopolis

John Of Scythopolis, a Greek ecclesiastical writer, who in all probability flourished in the latter part of the 5th century or the beginning of the 6th, wrote a work against the followers of Eutyches and Dioscorus, entitled Κατὰ τῶν ἀποσχιστῶν τῆς ἐκκλησίας, Contra desertores ecclesoe. It was divided into twelve parts, and was undertaken at the suggestion of a certain prelate, one Julianus, in reply to an anonymous Eutychian writer, who had published a book deceitfully entitled Κατὰ Νεστορίων, Adversus Nestorium, and whom Photius (Bibl. Cod. 95, 107) supposed to be Basilius, a presbyter of Cilicia. This Basilius wrote a reply to John in very abusive style, charging him, among many other things, with being a Manichaean, and with restricting Lent to a period of three weeks, and not abstaining from flesh even in that shortened period. Certain Παραθέσεις, Scholia, to the works of the pseudo Dionysius Areopagita, which Usher has observed to be mingled in -the printed editions of Dionysius with the Scholia of St. Maximus, have been ascribed to John of Scythopolis. Anastasius Bibliothecarius, in the 8th century, made a Latin translation of these mingled scholia, not now extant, in which he professed to distinguish those of Maximus from those of John by the mark of a cross. Fabricius (Bibl. Gr. 7, 9; 10, 707, 710) identifies the Scholia of John with the Commentarii in Dionysium Areopagitam cited by John Cyparissiota as by Dionysius of Alexandria. See Usher, Dissert. de Scriptis Dionys. Areop. suppositis, p. 299, subjoined to his Historia Dogmatica de Scriptoris Vernaculis, etc. (London, 1689, 4to); Cave, Hist. Litt. 1, 466. — Smith, Dict. of Gr. and Rom. Biog. 2, 602.